Bipeds of Brookland: Robert Malesky

Bipeds of Brookland: Robert Malesky

Robert Malesky has always had an abiding passion for local history. But it was only in 2007, after retiring from a 20-year career as a senior producer for NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday, that Robert could devote himself full-time to exploring the storied past of the neighborhood he calls home.

“I wound up having heart surgery a month after I left NPR,” Robert recalls. “Part of the recovery was walking for a good bit every day. I’d go over to Catholic University [where he used to be a student along with his wife, Kee]. I knew a lot of the stories but, as I walked by these buildings every day, I kept wondering more about them. So I’d start stopping by the library after my walks, just to look up a couple things.”

Those simple moments of curiosity soon snowballed into a 2010 history of his alma mater, The Catholic University of America, published through Arcadia Publishing’s campus history series.

Even still, there were limitations to the stories Robert could tell.

“It’s hard to tell a story in a short caption,” he says. “I thought, if I start a blog, I can do the bigger story. I can throw in all the details I want.”

So, in 2013, Bob began Bygone Brookland to make little-known local stories, rooted in detailed research, available to a wider audience. Recent posts have covered the history of the Monroe Street Bridge, past papal visits, and the legacy of housing covenants.

“It’s a chore of discovery for me,” Bob says. “For me, this blog is about saying ‘Oh, I just found this neat thing – here, take a look!’ I don’t think you can understand your neighborhood any better than through its history. And the more you know about it, the more connected you feel to the places where you’re standing and sitting.”

Bipeds of Brookland: A weekly series introducing the people who make Brookland their home, one step at a time. Article and photo by Zak Salih.